Mr. Cross should be at once asked to explain the
Vivisection Returns. It appears from them that during the year four new ficences have been issued for " experiments without anaesthetics," seven licences dispensing with the obligation to kill the animal before recovery from the anaesthetics, four for.experiments on the higher animals, and three dispensing with anmsthetics, in which curare (paralysing the animal, without rendering it less sensitive) is to be used. In addition to this, to the old licensees of last year, three special licenses for experiments without anaesthetics have been granted, five dispensing with the obligation to kill the animal before recovery from the anmsthetics, and two for experiments on the higher animals. It is probable that many of the cases of licences for 6' experiments without anaesthetics," and " licences dispensing with the obligation to kill the animal before its recovery from the anaesthetic," may be accounted for without assuming anything at all like torture. We know, in- deed, that some of them have been obtained for mere experiments in the inoculation of pleuro-pneumonia and other such cattle diseases,—experiments of no real pain and of great value, indeed of special value, in the interests of the animals themselves. But the licences for the use of curare without the administration of any anaesthetic, can hardly be so explained, especially as they were granted in connection with two licences for experiments on the higher animals, and granted to the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh,—the place where, as the Commis- sion on Vivisection showed, the greatest abuse had previously taken place. The deliberate torture of higher animals, in order to watch the action of special drugs upon their functions, ought to have been finally and absolutely put an end to ; and even now we continue to entertain some hope that Mr. Cross may be able so to explain the grant of these licences, as to show that it has not been renewed.
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